What was Krome's brief when first given the project by LucasArts?

Just as a background, I previously worked for Melbourne House. When Krome acquired Melbourne House, which was around 18 months ago, they were already working on The Force Unleashed both at the Brisbane and Adelaide studios. When we joined, they said 'Hey, this is a great opportunity to expand what we are doing'. So in addition to helping out with general development on the game, we took responsibility for the Wii platform.

The initial brief was that LucasArts wanted to make a game about Force powers, exploring Force powers in a way that hadn't been done before and to a level that hadn't been done before. When we started developing on the Wii, we thought there would be an expectation here. The fans are going to want with the Wii controller to use that as a lightsaber. So we spent a lot of time focusing on that. We didn't want it to feel like it was sort of tacked on. We spent a lot of time working on just the recognition, on making it feel responsive. Personally, I think it's the best gesture recognition we've seen on the Wii yet.

So how has the project been split up between Krome's Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide's studios?

We've all been working on it together. But each studio has taken over ownership of a single console. So we've all been working on the game together, sharing resources, but in Melbourne we've been paying attention to the Wii, in Brisbane they are working on PS2 and in Adelaide on the PSP. While we've got core resources, core level design, we've all been taking care of our own sides. On the Wii side we've been up-res'ing textures, making everything more highly detailed, we've got bump-maps on almost every surface.

Are the Wii, PS2 and PSP versions identical in terms of content except for the motion controls?

They are similar in terms of content, but there are differences between each of the builds. For example, in the Wii version there is the Duel mode. The PSP has got historic missions and also has multi-player. We're taking the strengths of each platform to give an experience that is appropriate for each platform. Which is one of the reasons why we chose Duel mode in the first place on the Wii. The idea behind the Wii was to bring people together, so we thought: 'Right, let's have something that people can play together with friends on the same screen, and hit each other with lightsabers!'

How much do you think the Wii remote adds to the experience?

You know, I wouldn't have believed it if you'd told me how much of a difference it would make. Early on when I first started on the project the very first thing I did was to set up some very basic lightsaber action. Just the difference between holding something that is like a lightsaber instead of a cramped controller in your hands made a big difference. It suddenly feels much more free and open and it does actually give the sensation of having a lightsaber in your hands, especially when you've got the sound set up so sounds are coming from your hand, and it's vibrating on impacts. It works really well.

What have been some of the biggest challenges during development?

Without a doubt the biggest challenge was the gesture recognition. I spent probably the better part of two months working on that. The tricky thing is that people tend to hold the Wii Remote in different ways. Some people hold it flat, some people hold it upright, some people hold it diagonally, and you want to cater for everyone, however it feels natural to them. It's a tricky new thing. No-one has really done gesture-based games before. So a lot of us are coming at it from the point of view that there is an analog stick, let's move that around. But it's an entirely different way of working.

It would be fair to say that a lot of third-party developers have struggled so far to get to grips with Wii's controls...

Oh yeah. As a developer, you don't want to use the gesture controls to just make this
gesture mean that button, and that gesture mean that button, that's missing the point. We've tried very hard not to end up doing that. In a couple of places we've entirely replaced modes of gameplay. For example, in the presentation you might have seen the sabre locks, which in other platforms are simple button mashers. We said: 'We don't want to do a button mash, let's do something interesting with the gesture control so you have to hold it a certain way and whoever does it faster wins'.

The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions are obviously the lead platforms for the game, and have a real focus on new technology like Euphoria and DMM (Digital Molecular Matter). Did that make it intimidating to tackle the other versions?

It was a bit. What we tried to do was go back to the basics. To say: 'They are using Euphoria and DMM in order to achieve these effects. How can we achieve the same effects without using the expensive middleware?' So where they use Euphoria, we use a combination of more conventional ragdolls and animations. You get a very similar feeling, even if we can't afford to do quite the same stuff. The same thing with DMM, which they use to break open doors, we just break open doors in a different way. Sometimes we use cut-scenes when we want it to be big and cinematic, sometimes we have doors that have pre-ready to be broken. But you get the same big Force powers feeling at the end.

So you're confident you have captured the essence of the game from other platforms?

I think so, yeah. You get the whole experience regardless of which platform you look at.

In fact you're getting extra levels on the Wii, right?

Yeah, we've got five extra missions that take place in three different environments that you don't see in the next-generation builds. And certainly even the levels which are shared, for the Wii, PS2 and PSP they have been built from the ground up for our platforms so there's different level geometry, different enemies, different attacks, different combos, even different Force powers. You could argue that someone could potentially buy both say the 360 and the Wii version and enjoy them both without one spoiling the other.

At this stage you must be almost done. What are you most happy with?

There's a good question. There's an awful lot I'm happy with. But speaking personally, what I'm most happy with is the lightsaber gesture controls. They just really came together in a way that we haven't seen before on the Wii in terms of being entirely responsive. The character on screen is swinging his sabre at the same time as you're swinging your remote, and not two seconds afterwards as is usually the case. But more than that, I've been extremely pleased at how well we've worked together with LucasArts. That's just been a dream. Dealing with publishers sometimes you worry a little bit about problems, but LucasArts has been fantastic.

It's obviously a significant coup for Krome to be handling the game. Do you feel it will help elevate the studio's standing in the industry?

Absolutely.

Thanks Trevor, good to meet you.